The other achievement gap: Poverty and academic success

The start of a school year should be a time of exciting new opportunities for all children, and maybe a little sadness that the summer is over. But 1 in 5 children in the United States live in poverty, which makes them likely to start the school year already behind their higher-income peers. This phenomenon is sometimes referred to as the “income achievement gap.”

Often, “achievement gap” refers to racial disparities in academic achievement—the fact that students of color tend to lag behind their white peers in terms of school readiness, test scores, educational attainment, and grades. The income achievement gap, on the other hand, is the disparity in academic achievement between students from high-income families and their less-affluent peers. Stanford researcher Sean Reardon, a frequently cited expert on the topic, has found that the gap in reading and math test scores between children in families with low and high incomes was twice as large as the gap between white and black students, for example.

Furthermore, while the black-white achievement gap has narrowed over time, the gap between high- and low-income students grew as much as 40 percent, when comparing children born in the 1970s to those born in 2001. Reardon’s latest research, using more recent data, indicates that the income achievement gap may have narrowed over the last 10 years. But even with this promising development, the gap is closing so slowly that Reardon and his colleagues estimate it would take at least 60 years for it to disappear completely.

Given the multiple obstacles to lower-income children’s academic achievement, the solutions will have to stretch beyond the educational system, and include parents, caregivers, and communities. The best-case scenario would be to move more families out of poverty, but as a country we have not yet determined how to do that most effectively. Fortunately, there are a few proven or promising solutions that may help narrow the achievement gap for children who live in poverty now.

For low-income families, we can provide parents with support and education on positive parenting techniques and the importance of early brain development. One example of a successful approach is home visiting programs, in which trained professionals such as nurses conduct in-home visits with low-income parents, starting as early as pregnancy.

Income inequality has been an important talking point in the presidential campaign so far, and we’re sure to hear a lot more about it before Election Day, though neither candidate has given much airtime to disparities in academic achievement. Until we find a way to help the millions of low-income children in this country who are heading into the school year behind their higher-income peers, we’ll have a long way to go toward achieving equality.